The following relates to the image classification arts, object classification arts, and so forth.
In many circumstances, particularly in traffic management, surveillance and tracking, one or more cameras are available for recording images related to vehicles, people, documents, and the like. This capturing of images does not always lend itself to optical character recognition operations, as such operations require sufficient resolutions, are prone to transcription errors, and are expensive to implement. In addition, use of existing cameras may not provide the resolution necessary for proper optical character recognition, as such cameras do not provide sufficient image clarity for text recognition to occur. For example, a city street corner may have existing traffic cameras, which routinely capture images of vehicles transiting an intersection. These images are stored in a database accessible by law enforcement to locate a stolen vehicle, but are not readily searchable by license plate number because the quality of image is not sufficient for optical character recognition to be performed. Law enforcement must then view each image in the database to manually scan for a license plate that matches the number of the vehicle being sought.
Optical character recognition does not impose strenuous demands on processing or time constraints on recognition operations. However, some instances may reflect substantial diversity amongst representative samples, e.g., recognition of driving licenses, identification forms, license plates, and the like. For example, license plates vary among states, while some states have multiple versions of plates, each with different graphics, text placement, fonts, and slogans. Similarly, each state or agency has its own version of identification, including text placement, hologram placement, fonts, slogans, and the like. In such circumstances, optical character recognition may require a high resolution image for analysis due to the large amount of competing indicia on the license plate or driver's license.